Wrigleyville Apartment

It feels like much longer than three weeks since we first moved into our apartment, but with everything that had to get done time also flew by. We moved from a 400 square foot “one bedroom” apartment in NYC to a true two bedroom apartment in Chicago. The reverse sticker shock is amazing. But it’s also a lot more work. You have to decide on more than two pieces of furniture, and you have to think about decorating more than four walls.

A couple weeks ago, I was doing work in one room and walked to the next room expecting to see Matt. He wasn’t there, and for a good 30 seconds I honestly had no idea where he was in the apartment. This would *LITERALLY NEVER HAVE HAPPENED* in our last apartment. We used to bump into each other constantly and not be able to stand in the kitchen at the same time, so the experience of having to search for him in our new apartment was kind of crazy.

We’ve had fun putting this place together. I had wanted a gallery wall for some time now, so after sending Matt screenshots from Pinterest (he wouldn’t make his own account) for the past 6 months we used a combination of purchased art, my own photos, and a map of Washington D.C. to make the gallery wall happen.

We’re probably most proud of our DIY table. My mom gave us an IKEA table she had sitting around (very similar to this one), and we went through the steps of distressing it with sand blocks, staining it with a dark wood stain, and painting it with white chalk paint. Such a fun and relatively easy project that cost us a fraction of what we could have purchased a table for. (This counts as an IKEA hack, right??)

It’s a work in progress. Our first coffee table in the living room looked totally off, so we replaced it with what we thought would be our dining table bench. We love the bench, so it’s fine that it gets even more attention in the center of the room now despite the fact that it’s not actually a coffee table?? Anyway, the marble coffee table got moved to the guest room (which is still in need of the right area rug), and the table still needs a bench so that more than two people can sit down at the table.

Also… suggestions are welcome for what we can hang over the couch in the living room (photo below) to make that wall look less blank. Seriously. Tell me what you think.